Multiparticle collision dynamics simulations of viscoelastic fluids: shear-thinning Gaussian dumbbells

The structural, dynamical, and rheological properties are studied of a multiparticle collision dynamics (MPC) fluid composed of shear-thinning Gaussian dumbbells. MPC is a mesoscale hydrodynamic simulation technique, which has successfully been applied in simulations of a broad range of complex fluids with Newtonian solvent. The MPC particles are replaced by Gaussian dumbbells, where we enforce a constant mean square length even under nonequilibrium conditions, which leads to shear thinning. This conserves the simplicity and efficiency of the original MPC fluid dynamics, since the analytical solution is known of Newton's equations of motion of the Gaussian dumbbells. Moreover, analytically obtained nonequilibrium structural, dynamical, and rheological properties are presented of Gaussian dumbbells under shear flow within the preaveraging approximation of hydrodynamic interactions. The comparison of the analytical and simulation results shows good agreement, with small deviations only due to the preaveraging approximation. In particular, we observe shear thinning and a nonzero second normal stress coefficient.